OVERNIGHT. Rock.

Surfers Let Arty Special Effects Overwhelm Their Music

July 20, 1993|By Brenda Herrmann, Tribune Staff Writer.

As a concert, the Butthole Surfers show at the Aragon Saturday night was dismal. As performance art, it was first rate.

The unclassifiable Texas quartet packed the stage with arty effects ranging from smoke to a laser light show to constantly running video clips of everything from B movies to painful footage of a set of teeth undergoing major dental damage.

For anyone outside of the mosh pit, however, that was about all one could see. The band was barely visible through the smoke and mirrors.

But the music was good, consisting mainly of tunes from the Surfers' latest (and best) release, "Independent Worm Saloon," the band's first for a major label (Capitol).

And, of course, there was lead singer Gibby Haynes' standup comedy routine which, when audible through the sound system, was just as he planned it to be-entirely tasteless and unfunny.

But then again, it's hard to laugh while watching a video of bleeding, receding gums.

The co-headliners, San Diego's Stone Temple Pilots, opened the show-in spite of the fact they are this year's Pearl Jam and have sold more copies of their debut album, "Core," than the Surfers have peddled in their entire 12-year career.

And though STP is the less creative of the two acts, they put on a solid, inspiring set packed with more stage scenery and lighting equipment than most bands bring to such a small venue.

Blasting from the beginning with "Crackerman," STP thrilled the audience and kept the pace fast as they moved through "Wicked Garden" and the alternative hit "Plush."

Slow-motion moshers moved like dancers through the stirring "Creep," which the band is now playing live. (In prior interviews, they had said the song was too emotional to be played in a concert setting, but when you have a hit record, you give the people what they want.)

And while the rocker "Dead & Bloated" was very well-received, STP saved the best for last with their first hit, "Sex Type Thing," a song about date rape that is both strangely seductive and ominous as the same time.